/ Slavoj Zizek

Capitalism is not just a historical epoch among others. In a way, the once fashionable and now half-forgotten Francis Fukuyama was right: global capital is “the end of history.” A certain excess which was, as it were, kept under check in previous history, perceived as a localizable perversion, as an excess, a deviation, is in capitalism elevated into the very principle of social life, in the speculative movement of money begetting more money, of a system which can survive only by constantly revolutionizing its own conditions-that is to say, in which the thing can survive only as its own excess, constantly exceeding its own “normal” constraints. And, perhaps it is only today, in global capitalism in its “postindustrial”, digitalized form, that, to put it in Hegelian terms, really existing capitalism is reaching the level of its notion: perhaps, one should follow again Marx’s old, antievolutionist motto (incidentally taken verbatim from Hegel) that the anatomy of man provides the key for the anatomy of the monkey-that is, in order to deploy the inherent, notional structure of a social formation, one must start with its most developed form. +

In the last decade, Davos and Porto Alegre have emerged as the twin cities of globalization. In Davos, the exclusive Swiss ski resort, the global elite of managers, statesmen and media personalities meets under heavy police protection, trying to convince us (and themselves) that globalization is its own best remedy. In the sub-tropical, Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, the counter-elite of the anti-globalization movement convenes, trying to convince us (and themselves) that capitalist globalization is not our fate, that, as their official slogan has it, â€œanother world is possible.â€ Lately, however, the Porto Alegre reunions seem to have lost their impetus. Where did the bright stars of Porto Alegre go? +